The Spring Ridge Surgical Center is the largest in the State. (Photo courtesy of Tower Health)

West Reading’s Tower Health has announced a partnership with the nation’s largest manager of ambulatory surgical centers to expand access to care for patients in its market area.

Through the joint venture with United Surgical Partners International of Texas, Tower plans to both acquire and develop ambulatory surgery centers in Southeastern Pennsylvania with a goal of improving access for patients to high-quality, high-value surgical procedures.

Daniel Ahern, executive vice president for strategy and business development for Tower Health, said the current trend in the health care industry is to move more patients into ambulatory surgery centers instead of traditional hospital surgery.

“Obviously not all procedures can be moved to outpatient settings,” he said. But he said for many procedures including eye surgery, orthopedic surgery and even some gastro-intestinal surgeries there are many advantages to the outpatient surgical centers, including cost.

“Hospitals are complex organizations that have high costs. For patients that don’t need the hospital stay they can get good results [at surgical centers.]”

Ahern noted that Tower already has a very successful ambulatory surgical center at the Spring Ridge Surgical Center in Spring Ridge, which is one of the largest in the state.

Ahern said preliminary market studies of the needs in the region show potential for between 10 and 12 new surgical centers in the region, but no plans have been finalized.

Writer and online editor Stacy Wescoe has her finger on the pulse of the business community in the Greater Lehigh Valley and keeps you up-to-date with technology and trends, plus what coworkers and competitors are talking about around the water cooler — and on social media.
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